Registry of donors for rare blood groups coming soon

Bengaluru’s biggest blood bank is drawing up plans to open a rare blood group registry.

The registry will come to the rescue of individuals with blood types that occur in one of 10,000 people.

The Rotary Bangalore TTK Blood Centre, Bangalore Medical Services Trust (BMST), decided to set up the registry after an extremely rare case came to light. 

A 30-year-old woman in the A+ blood group was admitted to a Mangaluru hospital with alarmingly low haemoglobin levels. When the hospital contacted the bank in Bengaluru for blood, it could not find a compatible sample for transfusion. “Generally, we find a match in the first or second sample we test. In the case of this woman, we tested about 30 samples and couldn’t find a match. When we studied her blood we learnt that it was an extremely rare group — Rh D -- (pronounced dash dash),” says Dr Latha Jagannathan, medical director and managing trustee at BMST. 

They eventually found a donor in Mumbai with the same group, but by then, her haemoglobin levels stabilised and they treated her with iron supplements and discharged her. “The sad part of her story is that she has lost three babies after they were born due to this rare condition. If she had known about her blood group, the babies could have been saved,” explains Latha. 

The trust stepped in to test other members of the family. They found three more individuals with Rh D — blood. “The problem now is that one of her nieces is pregnant and we need to monitor the foetus closely to ensure it survives,” she says. 

The 40-year-old blood centre has a database of six lakh regular voluntary donors. Blood donation camps are conducted every day at tech parks, universities and other locations. “We’re hoping to test 20,000 samples for the rare blood types from our existing database. And identify more individuals with these blood types based on what we already know — by testing family members of known cases,” says Dr Ankit Mathur, additional medical director at BMST. 

Blood group and antibody testing cost Rs 300 per sample. To conduct the more detailed tests that identify rare groups, the bank will need to spend an additional Rs 100 each, which will add up to Rs 20 lakh for 20,000 samples. BMST is an NGO, and is looking for people to contribute. 

Lack of awareness

Dr Latha explains that there is a  lack of awareness around the existence of these groups. The blood type only comes to light when there is a health problem. While most donors are easily matched with recipients, it gets harder in patients with thalassemia, leukaemia and other conditions that require regular blood transfusions.

“Everyone thinks that if you’re A+, you are compatible with anyone with A+ or O+ blood. There are many antigens in blood, such as C, c, E and e,” she says. One can be positive or negative for these antigens and the combination of these is what makes a blood group rare or common.

“In the case of the patient from Mangaluru, we surmise it is because of inbreeding. Marrying within the family is common in some communities,” says Mathur. 

Some of the other groups they have come across are Rh null (which is also called golden blood group with less than 50 cases in the world) and ENA -ve. 

For donations, contact 97405 94251 or email [e-mail]

Blood types

There are broadly two blood group systems — the ABO system and the Rh system. Common blood groups are A, B, AB, and O. They are determined by the antigen present in the red blood cells. Type A will have A antigens, B will have B and soon. The blood types are positive or negative depending on the presence of Rh factor’s D antigen.